Students say gymnastics coach Infante 'groomed' them for sex

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, December 1, 2007

A second photo, also reportedly taken at an overnight gymnastics camp Infante ran in Massachusetts last year, shows a different young girl lying face down on a carpet, her wrists handcuffed behind her back. Another set of cuffs binds her ankles, and the two sets of restraints are tied together.

In an earlier picture of the same scene, a second coach, who police said was Infante's longtime best friend, is attaching the cuffs to the girl.

Investigators say they discovered the photos while investigating charges of sexual misconduct by Infante. Descriptions of the photographs are contained in a July 2007 affidavit authored in support of search and seizure warrants in the case.

Whoever posted the photographs on the Web site may have viewed them as harmless fun -- youngsters and their adult supervisors unwinding after an intensive day of training.

But to law enforcement authorities investigating child sexual abuse charges against Infante, a 51-year-old New Milford man, they were chilling corroboration of a victim's story about how she was "groomed" for a sexual relationship with Infante when she was 13.

"The process entails gradually making the victim less wary by exposing him or her gradually to physical touching, sexual topics and nudity," Connecticut State Police wrote in the application for warrants that investigators used to search Infante's Mist Hill Road home in New Milford and his former gymnastics studio in Brookfield last summer.

"This exposure is increased over time, with the attacker emphasizing the need for secrecy to the victim, until the attacker believes it is safe to assault the victim without fear of being reported," state police wrote.

What authorities found among Infante's photographs, business records and credit card receipts, along with statements from six former students, they said, was enough evidence for a Massachusetts grand jury to indict him on charges he had sex or improper sexual contact with two underage girls, going back to the early 1990s.

The second coach, Stephen DiTullio, who runs a gym in Stow, Mass., and has worked with Infante for years at the Five Star Gymnastics Camp In Massachusetts, was charged with perjury for allegedly lying to investigators about alcohol consumption by minors at the camp.

Court papers allege that DiTullio, 53, also had sex with students, although no such charges have yet been filed against him.

The investigation is continuing, and authorities know about even more victims, Acton Chief Frank Widmayer said, "but because of the statute of limitations, some cases couldn't be brought forward."

Infante, the former owner of Olympia Sports Academy in Brookfield, pleaded not guilty to all charges and is due back in court Dec. 12.

Attempts to reach him last week were unsuccessful, but his Massachusetts attorney, Peter Russell, said this week Infante "absolutely denies all these allegations and looks forward to fighting them in court."

Massachusetts police began their investigation in June 2006, according to court papers, after a Colorado woman and former gymnastics student claimed she had information on numerous sexual assaults involving girls at DiTullio's business, called the Gym Nest, between 1990 and 1996. She claimed the assaults were perpetrated by both DiTullio and Infante, according to court documents.

Eventually, police identified a half-dozen victims, but because some of the alleged sexually inappropriate behavior occurred in the early 1980s, not all the cases could be prosecuted, according to authorities.

All of the alleged victims were reportedly students of either DiTullio or Infante, or participated in overnight camps the two coaches ran with another Massachusetts gym owner, Steven Thompson, of South Hadley, at various locations in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The coaches, dubbed the "Three Steves" by Middlesex, Mass., District Attorney Gerard Leone, also took their students to competitions at each other's gyms, according to court papers.

Both DiTullio and Thompson are married and have families, according to court filings, and Infante is single.

In addition to the horseplay involving whipped cream, and rewarding students by allowing them to smash cream pies in the faces of the coaches, court documents allege that Infante and DiTullio made sexually charged comments to some of the girls and provided alcohol during parties at the camps.

On many occasions, Leone said, the drinking was followed by "sex games, sexual touching and sex acts."

Such activities, especially the consumption of alcohol, are tactics employed by pedophiles to reduce the likelihood that potential victims will confide in their parents, said Helen McGonigle, a Brookfield attorney who has represented sexual abuse victims.

"If they admit they were drinking, they are compromised," McGonigle said. "They're afraid they will get into trouble with Mom and Dad."

For one girl, authorities claim, the grooming began in 1990, when she was 13, and escalated into sexual relations a year later.

The sex continued until she was 18, according to authorities, with clandestine, late-night phone conversations using a calling card provided by Infante and regular meetings for sex at his home, DiTullio's gym and motels in Massachusetts.

When she became pregnant -- allegedly with his child -- in 1994, Infante waited until she was 18, then took her to a clinic in Stamford for an abortion, according to Massachusetts court documents.

All the while, court papers allege, Infante emphasized the need for secrecy and said they could make their relationship public when she turned 18. When she was 18, he said they should wait until she was 21.

A decade ago, Infante was considered to be among the best gymnastics coaches in Connecticut, guiding dozens of students to state and national success.

But his star began to dim in 1998, when he was banned for life by USA Gymnastics, the sport's national governing board, after the sexual misconduct claims surfaced.

The year before, three former Olympia gymnasts and friends, two of whom now live in Georgia, told USAG officials they had lengthy, consensual sexual relationships with Infante between 1983 and 1997, according to a 1998 story in The News-Times. Because all three girls were at least 16 years old when the relationships allegedly began, no criminal charges could be brought against him.

But some of the tactics that police now allege Infante used to prepare his victims for sexual contact were reminiscent of ones used on her in the 1980s, said Debbie Roman Connelly, one of the women whose complaint led to the ban.

"He started grooming me when I was 13, 14, 15 years old," she told The News-Times. "I didn't realize until afterward how sick it was."

"There was very much a pattern that was set in place," Michelle Truesdell Drehoff, the second woman, said in a phone interview. "We wouldn't have brought it out if we didn't feel (Infante's conduct) wasn't going to continue."

Both women said they had done their best to put the episode behind them until they were contacted by the Colorado woman, their former gymnastics teammate, who eventually went to police in 2006.

Connelly said she was "horrified" when the woman told her Infante was back coaching, despite the USA Gymnastics ban.

"The last I had heard, he'd moved out west," she said. "I was very upset to learn he'd weaseled his way back into the gymnastics community."

Connelly and Drehoff urged their friend to contact police, which she subsequently did.

For the past several years, investigators said, Infante has served as president of the Five Star camps, which are held each summer at various locations in Massachusetts. Thompson is its secretary, and DiTullio is the Massachusetts director for USA Gymnastics, the same group that banned Infante for life.

Roman said she spotted Infante's name on Five Star's Web site last summer and e-mailed USA Gymnastics to report that a banned coach was again working. She said she got no response.

USA Gymnastics spokeswoman Leslie King said the association has cooperated with criminal investigators and that Infante remains on the organization's banned list.

Termination of his membership, she said, does not prevent him from being a partner in a gymnastics business.

"We are a governing body, not a regulatory agency," King said. "Being banned means a person doesn't have the right or privilege to participate in a sanctioned event."

Both Connelly and Drehoff said they hope the latest case will force the gymnastics organization to enact stronger safeguards and make parents more aware of the potential dangers their children face.

McGonigle said she is hopeful the publicity the case has attracted will encourage more victims to come forward, if there are more.

"When you have six victims corroborating each other, it certainly presents a strong case," she said. "If there are other victims, I hope they will have the courage to go forward. If he can be prosecuted in Connecticut, he should be."

So far, all the criminal charges against Infante and DiTullio are in Massachusetts.

Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky last week refused to say whether there was any criminal investigation targeting the two in Connecticut.